


Implication/Complication

by ineptshieldmaid



Category: Inception
Genre: Character of Color, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-07
Updated: 2010-12-07
Packaged: 2017-10-13 13:48:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/138050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineptshieldmaid/pseuds/ineptshieldmaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur doesn't like withheld information and he doesn't like assumptions. Assumptions get you killed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Implication/Complication

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [insane_duckfish's kissing meme](http://insane-duckfish.livejournal.com/355908.html)

It's more than a month before Arthur puts two and two together: he'd normally be quicker off the mark than that, but to be fair, he doesn't actually see all that much of Saito. He follows a rival to Venice, hunts out the mistress of one of Saito's employees, and ensures the misdirection of mail from one company in Brazil to another in Chile: in all, he spends perhaps two days in ten in Japan.

Still, after a while, he notices. Saito's PA recognises his number, even when he's changed his number. He can walk the headquarters of Proclus Global, march right up to Saito's door, and go unchallenged.

The doorman at Saito's apartment building just nods at him. Saito's bodyguard never so much as raises an eyebrow at him.

Arthur doesn't like withheld information and he doesn't like assumptions. Assumptions get you killed.

He delivers the information he came to bring - nothing extracted, just the products of meticulous observation - and stands up to go.

Saito stands with him, all fluid elegance and restraint in his shirtsleeves and slacks. Arthur's wearing a full three-piece and he feels underdressed next to Saito. Underdressed, and he wants to reach out and touch the delicate dove-grey cotton where it lies open-collared against Saito's skin.

Saito's bodyguard is standing - not lounging, but almost - in the entryway, evidently waiting for the chance to ensure that no one untoward enters the apartment when Arthur exits it. The man, whose name Arthur has not yet learned, nods ever so slightly toward him. Arthur decides enough is enough.

He steps back up out of the entryway, and he thinks he sees a flicker of surprise on Saito's face, but Saito says nothing, just turns at lets Arthur follow him into his living room again.

'What have you told them about me?' Arthur says, jerking his head in the direction of the hapless bodyguard even as he closes the door.

Saito clasps his hands calmly behind his back. 'I could hardly tell them the nature of your employment with me,' he says. 'It would have a terrible effect on my reputation.'

'And so you told them - what?' Arthur steps up into Saito's space, just a little, and Saito doesn't back down. 'I'm supposed to be your latest plaything, am I?'

Saito appears to actually consider that for a moment or two. 'I did not specify latest,' he says. 'Most serious is more in keeping with the level of access I wish you to have to me.' He pauses, and amends: 'To my life.'

Arthur's head spins, the words _plaything_ and _level of access_ and _most serious_ rattling around in his head. The breath he draws is wobbly, he knows it is, but it brings his thoughts under control.

'And it didn't occur to you to tell me about this?' he asks. He wonders why he's not shouting. He's fairly sure that, were this Cobb, he would be shouting by now. 'This didn't seem like something that might, oh, affect our professional relationship?'

Saito unclasps his hands from behind his back, and holds them out, open-palmed. 'This is our professional relationship, Arthur.'

'Fuck that,' Arthur says. He thinks this is probably not his most eloquent statement ever, but he takes Saito's hands and pulls him forward, just far enough that Arthur can lean in and kiss him, close-mouthed and hard.

This shuts Saito up, which is convenient.

'You don't keep secrets from me,' he says, low and forceful. 'You don't omit details, you don't assume I don't need to know. If it concerns me, or it concerns my work or it concerns me and - me and you, then you tell me.'

Saito looks like he might argue, so Arthur kisses him again.


End file.
